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Table of Contents Letter from the Editors
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Boccioni and the Posthumous Cast
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Kelsey Goelz
Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
13
Ani Mnatsakanyan
Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
23
Alan Prieto
The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
34
Feibi McIntosh
Performance Art and Performing with Art: The Difference between Adapting and Attempting Cassandra D’Cruz
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Letter From the Editors: We are pleased to release our inaugural edition of Impression, USC’s first Art History undergraduate academic journal. We hope that this outlet for appreciation of the visual arts is enjoyed by the USC community at large and helps to foster a sense of community within USC’s Art History Department, which we hold dear. We would like to thank everyone who submitted works for the journal, our faculty advisor Sonya Lee, and the Art History Student Association for their support and efforts. In this edition we have chosen five essays, all pertaining to 20th and 21st century art, organized chronologically. We are excited to share these works that are the products of several exemplary undergraduate writers who belong to the Trojan Family. We hope you enjoy! Sincerely, USC AHSA Editorial Team Lindsey Cook Michelle Crisosto Samuel Hertz
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Boccioni and the Posthumous Cast
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Boccioni and the Posthumous Cast Kelsey Goelz Senior, Art History and Public Relations Umberto Boccioni was a founding member of the Italian Futurist art movement. In an attempt to render the essence of speed and industrialization, Boccioni sculpted several striding figures in plaster, the last of which was “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”. This paper will examine the life of Boccioni’s masterpiece after his death, and the different reproductions that were created in bronze. I will discuss the ethics of these posthumous casts and speculate as to whether or not materials have the ability to alter one’s interpretation of the work. A problem that often arises in art history is that of the posthumous cast. After a noteworthy artist passes away, their work may be appropriated so it can be shared throughout the art world. Without the artist present to defend their work, sculptures get lost in translation or are reproduced against the original artist’s intentions. A modern work of sculpture that illustrates this dilemma is Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Formed from plaster by Umberto Boccioni in 1912, this quintessential work of Futurist sculpture defines the movement’s idea of the dynamic, modern man while exploring scientific concepts involving “the fourth dimension.” After his death, Boccioni’s plaster masterpiece was cast in bronze multiple times. This paper will not only explore the sculptural and historical significance of the work, but also the shift in meaning that occurred as a result of being reproduced in a new medium 18 years after its initial creation. It will be argued that the bronze casts belong to the year 1931 when they were made, as opposed to 1913 when Boccioni produced the plaster original. The varied patinas that have been applied to the bronze reproductions contradict the Futurist’s ideals as presented in their many manifestos, and imbue the sculpture with new connotations. Before analyzing the posthumous casts of Boccioni’s most famous work, however, it is important to retrace his journey to the creation of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. The
beginnings of the Futurist movement and Boccioni’s slow but intense transition from painting into sculpture are vital to an understanding of the significance of his masterpiece. In 1909, Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the Manifesto of Futurism, a document that established the theory and practice of his brainchild, the Futurist movement. Marinetti called upon his fellow Italians to break away from tradition and historic institutions, and urged them to find inspiration in the contemporary world. His manifesto outlined Futurism’s intention to favor energy, danger and fearlessness, therefore glorifying violence and war. Marinetti found beauty in the scientific and industrial advancements that took place during the early twentieth century in Europe and abroad. The growing speed of the modern world fascinated him, and he wanted the arts of Italy to reflect that same forward motion. Marinetti’s manifesto emphasized the significance of youth, suggesting that the work of individuals under thirty would soon be replaced by the next set of young people only 10 years later. In its early stages, Marinetti’s Futurist movement primarily applied to literature and poetry. However, a group of young painters—Boccioni, Carra, Severini, Balla and Russolo—soon became interested in how Futurism could be applied to the visual arts.
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"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&!! talented of the group.2 Though Boccioni worked in paint for the first two years of his Futurist career, he began to experiment with sculpture in 1912. His devotion to Futurist theory led him to begin exploring the artistic possibilities that sculpture offered— especially when it came to representing movement and speed in three dimensions. Also in 1912, Boccioni wrote the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture which, like all other Futurist prose, begins by fervently condemning artistic practices and traditions of the past. Boccioni argues that sculptors throughout history and across the globe have consistently conformed to outdated formulas. He goes on to say: “even in those which have a breath of bold innovation, we see the perpetuation of the same old kind of misapprehension: an artist copies a nude or studies classical statues with the naïve conviction that here he will find a style that equates to modern sensibility without stepping outside the traditional concepts of sculptural form”3 Unlike painting, which is constantly undergoing “renewal,” Boccioni observed that sculpture progressed at a much slower pace. Additionally, contemporary painters all over Europe had begun representing subjects in harmony with their environment—referred to as the “Futurist 4 INTERPRETATION OF PLANES,” — which had
Less than a year after Marinetti published his manifesto, the five painters drafted their own. The Manifesto of Futurist Painters took a more practical approach to outlining the movement’s ideologies than Marinetti’s figurative writing had. While adhering to all of the guidelines and ideals that Marinetti had laid out, the artists adapted Futurism to what they knew best. Much like the first manifesto, the new Manifesto of Futurist Painters also repudiated art of the past and opted to exclusively feature contemporary subjects in their work. The Futurist painters rebelled against tradition and standards of art and beauty, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of art critics’ opinions. Above all, their manifesto demanded originality and urged painters to “invalidate all kinds of imitation.”1 After Boccioni read the manifesto aloud from the stage of the Teatro Chiarella in Turin, Italy in 1910, other painters began to include Futurist characteristics in their work. They left portraits and landscapes behind, choosing to represent the excitement and momentum of their industrialized world instead. This was the very beginning of a short-lived, but intense collaboration between extremely dedicated and eloquent Italian artists. Umberto Boccioni quickly began to stand out among the Futurists. He was passionate about the movement and took charge of outreach by drafting many of his own manifestos and encouraging his peers to immerse themselves in Futurist thought and practice. He made a clear effort to keep the group together so as to ensure their collective safety and fame. The Futurists regarded Boccioni as their leader, and the critic Apollinaire identified him as the most
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not yet been conveyed in three dimensions. In order to represent “those sympathetic effects and mysterious affinities which create formal and reciprocal influences between the different planes of an object”5 through sculpture, Boccioni asserted that artists must give objects life by revealing their extensions in space. Everything is connected by lines and curves, and it is the Futurist sculptor’s goal to give these intersections plastic form. The Futuristic belief that all objects are a conglomeration of different parts, linked by various forces, was echoed by Umberto Boccioni’s approach to sculpture. In order to represent the diversity of pieces that made up the sculptural whole, Boccioni urged his followers to “insist that even twenty different types of materials can be used in a single work of art.”6 By using some combination of wood, glass, iron, cardboard, cement, plaster, hair and so on, the artist could achieve plastic movement, or the three-dimensional representation of dynamism. In his opinion, assemblage was the only way one could articulate motion through sculpture. This strategy also satisfied his call for innovation in the sculptural arts and conforms to the Futurists’ contempt for traditional art, especially sculptures made from bronze or marble. Besides their importance in art history, bronze and marble represented a sense of permanence and weight that counteracted the speed and agility of Futurism’s preferred subjects. After accusing sculpture of being “plagiaristic and sterile,”7 Boccioni set out to bring new life to his sculptural subjects by !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
incorporating numerous materials in each of his works. One of Boccioni’s first sculptural attempts took place in 1912 when he created Fusion of a Head and a Window. Unfortunately, this sculpture no longer exists due to Boccioni’s extreme selfcriticism, which led him to destroy many of his sculptures soon after constructing them. Only about one quarter of Boccioni’s sculptures survive today, adding a layer of mystery to his story and body of work. Fusion of a Head and a Window is a sculptural portrait that includes wood, metal, plaster and several other materials. Intersecting fragments and planes create an image of a human’s head in relation to the environment around it, which involves a window and the rays of light that enter through it. This piece exemplifies Boccioni’s own criteria that he presented in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, but he still had a long way to go. Wood, paper and metal were combined to form Boccioni’s next sculpture, Horse and Rider and Houses, in 1914. In her book Futurist Art and Theory, Marianne W. Martin posits that Boccioni achieved greater unity in this sculpture compared to the last by decreasing the number of materials. She elaborates, stating that “he had probably found that many materials were harder to control in practice than in theory and so confined himself to one dominant texture in the central bulk of the sculpture, reserving others for peripheral details…”8 So, while his ambitious manifesto was exciting in theory and inspired him to take on challenging projects, further experimentation with sculpture led him to realize that fewer materials allowed for greater success and unity. As Boccioni became more in tune with the limitations !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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and opportunities that sculpture presented, he was able to use the art form to obtain a better understanding of movement in three dimensions. Boccioni was not only interested in the artistic representation of speed and motion, but also the science and theory behind it. Parallel to his sculptural endeavors, Boccioni studied two types of motion, which he claimed were the inseparable, simultaneous elements of dynamism. The first component is absolute motion, which involves an object’s physicality—its materials, color, temperature, form, etc. The second, relative motion, is the ever-changing relationship between the object and the environment surrounding it. This component includes the speed of modern life and all other perceptions that overlap one another, such as the sounds and vibrations of a city street. Boccioni’s overarching goal was to represent the synthesis of these two components through sculpture. In yet another manifesto, entitled The Plastic Foundations of Futurist Sculpture and Painting, Boccioni states that: “this measuring of objects, and of the atmospheric forms which they create and in which they are contained, forms the QUANTITATIVE value of an object. If we then go deeper into our perceptive faculties and translate the other value, that is the QUALITATIVE value, we shall discover the MOTION, the impulse of the object. This motion is a quality, and, in our sculptural aesthetic, quality equals feeling.”9 Though they were often accused of being “cinematographic” by dividing images into
parts to show their motion, the Futurists insisted that they were in fact searching for a more simplistic symbol that represented an object’s continuity through space. By exposing both the absolute and relative motion of their subjects, Boccioni and other Futurist artists could convey the aforementioned “feeling,” or understanding of the subject’s nature beyond the surface. Outside of Boccioni’s own studies and the Futurist circles, outstanding advancements in geometry and science were taking place. Einstein’s theory of special relativity had been published in 1905, and the development of “n-dimensional geometry,” or geometries of more than three dimensions, was gaining popularity. The early twentieth century witnessed an obsession with the idea of the fourth dimension, which “signified a higher, unseen dimension of space which might hold a reality truer than that of visual perception.”10 Artists of the time were intrigued by this concept, which allowed them to move beyond the three-dimensional perceptions of reality and incorporate a new aspect of space in their work. Of the first to do this were the Cubists, Picasso and Braque, in 1912. Though it is known that Picasso drew most of his inspiration from African art and the paintings of Paul Cezanne, his later work with Analytical Cubism suggests his sensitivity to “a reality beyond visual perception.”11 According to Henderson’s article Italian Futurism and “the Fourth Dimension,” the theorists Metzinger, Gliezes and Apollinaire saw the geometric concept as “the major rationale for a Cubist painter’s freedom to distort or deform objects according to a higher law, as
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well as for his rejection of perspective.”12 Cubism achieved a visual connection between pictorial space and the form of its subjects, and the fourth dimension provided a means to explain that. However, the Cubist understanding of the fourth dimension was limited to space, and did not necessarily incorporate time and motion. Considering their engagement with speed and movement, it is no surprise that the Futurists became involved with the contemplation and representation of the fourth dimension. Boccioni was automatically captivated by this scientific explanation that he could apply to the visualization of an object’s threedimensional sections progressing through space. He was frustrated by his many attempts to synthesize absolute and relative motion through assemblage. After destroying his early sculptures in a fit of discontent, Boccioni travelled to Paris, where he saw many of the newest Cubist paintings. While the Cubist’s treatment of the fourth dimension did not necessarily impress Boccioni, he must have been affected by their simplistic use of surface and their unified compositions. When he came back and began to work on sculptures again, he did so exclusively in plaster. Though this disobeyed his own guidelines as presented in the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, limiting himself to one material allowed Boccioni to focus on the form of movement through time and nothing else. Plaster also invited change and edits, which was crucial considering the experimental nature of Boccioni’s work. Unlike assemblage, an additive process, the reductive process of carving into plaster left room for as many alterations as he saw necessary. Boccioni’s first two plaster sculptures were full-length human figures,
shown in stride. These works put his new understanding of movement and universality to the test. The first of the two works is known as Synthesis of Human Dynamism (1912). Marianne Martin speculates that Boccioni could have drawn inspiration from the “conceptualized, trimly delineated forms of motion in Severini’s dancers”13 as well as from the infamous Victory of Samothrace. The figure emerges from a flat base with one foot forward as if taking a proud, strong, but slow step forward. Sweeping lines populate the entire surface of the sculpture. It is easy to identify the two legs, arms, shoulders and chest of the figure, but the head and face are interrupted by a horizontal element that resembles a table. The sculpture’s weight increases as the eye moves upwards, aided by the organic, flowing lines that create a rhythmic pattern around the figure. We are forced to contemplate the figure’s speed, direction and motive as we anticipate its progress. This figure is not meant to represent any one person, but rather the “embodiment of the Futurist superman”14 who remains faceless. This element of anonymity somewhat contradicts Boccioni’s desire to create a sculpture that represents the vibrancy of life. In the year 1913, Boccioni made three more striding figures in plaster, all of which show a more abstract interpretation of plastic movement. Although none of Boccioni’s plaster figures exist today, numerous sketches live on to communicate Boccioni’s thought process while he was in the early stages of their creation. Chronologically, the next two striding figures were titled Speeding Muscles and Spiral Expansion. Much like the rhythmic, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ')!+,-.,//0!L%!+,-1./2!+,-,%('-!.%-!/*0!12&)%34!
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disjointed lines that made up Synthesis of Human Dynamism, sharp contours create upward movement, or “swift petal-like unfolding of the object in motion,”15 in these two monumental figures as well. What sets the later figures apart from their predecessor is the increased simplicity and use of rounded forms. Compared to Synthesis of Human Dynamism, there are fewer harsh angles and horizontal elements, causing the figures to appear more graceful and even swifter. According to Martin, the opposition between the angular and curved motifs expressed a conflict among impulses of weight and expansion which, to Boccioni, symbolized yet another conflict between matter and spirit.16 Spiral Expansion is different from the other two figures due to the fact that there is negative space between the two legs. This causes the sculpture to appear lighter, and the human body is more recognizable. Boccioni’s progress as a sculptor is apparent, and he seems to learn from each striding figure before moving on to the next. Unfortunately, all three of the original plaster figures were destroyed. Photographs from the artist’s studio exist, as well as photographs of Boccioni working on the figures. While these documents imply that the artist wanted to track his developments and also allude to a sense of pride that he must have had in his work, the sculptures do not live on. Some of Boccioni’s work was destroyed by the artist himself, but others were discarded by jealous contemporaries soon after his death in 1916. The sculpture that does live on past Boccioni’s own lifetime is Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, which he also
completed in 1913. This grand culmination of his striding figures represents not only the climax of Boccioni’s career, but also the height of the Futurist movement in general. By including elements from each of the figures that came before it, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space reconciles “the flexibility and lightness of Spiral Expansion with the determination and force of Speeding Muscles.”17 The figure emerges from two static cubes, which serve as a plinth for the sculpture as well as a point of reference. The juxtaposition between the hard lines of the cube and the bold, swooping lines of the striding figure emphasizes the forward motion that Boccioni is trying to convey. Much like in Spiral Expansion, we are able to see between the strong legs of the figure as it takes an elongated step forward. There are no horizontal forms protruding from the middle of the sculpture to suggest arms. The focus is directed up from the legs to the top of the head. More so than the first few striding figures, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space achieves a kind of uniformity among its playful, wrapping fragments. The elements of this dynamic figure resemble the flames of a fire or the wings of a bird in flight, reminding us once again of Victory of Samothrace. Boccioni had finally conceived of the perfect embodiment of Futurism. Once again faceless and nameless, this figure exists in complete harmony with its environment. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is Boccioni’s answer to his own Futurist manifestos, which demand innovation and originality. Additionally, the sculpture responds to Marinetti’s original call for a new modern world by providing it with a new modern man. Boccioni’s sculpture represents a human body that has !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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adapted to speed. After three less successful attempts and much frustration, Boccioni finally had a firm grasp on the fourth dimension. Though he was significantly influenced by this scientific concept, his sculptures are more concerned with the simple idea of dynamism than the invisible projection of forces through time. The fourth dimension had a greater effect on the Cubists, as well as Duchamp (Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2, for example). Regardless, Boccioni “felt that he must claim ‘the fourth dimension’ for Futurism and even turn it against his Cubist rivals.”18 During his own lifetime, Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space stimulated conversations but did not get as much attention as it did in later years. Only a year after the creation and exhibition of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Boccioni joined a volunteer cyclists’ brigade in response to the beginning of World War II. After being transferred to the Italian army in 1916, he died by falling off of a horse at only 34 years old.19 Boccioni continued to be known as the leader of the Futurists. His early death, in addition to the loss of the majority of his sculptures, creates a romantic air around his life and his artistic career. Fifteen years after his death, Boccioni’s most well known work was cast in bronze multiple times. Despite the popularity and familiarity of the bronze sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space was never cast in the artist’s lifetime.20 The original plaster cast still exists at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Luckily, this original
work was not destroyed before the end of his life as most of his sculptures were. A total of fourteen bronze casts were produced in 1931, 1949 and 1972 six of which were made from the plaster original.21 Though many of the bronze works are identical, some of them were given different patinas. Each variation of color and sheen alters the sculpture’s effect on the viewer and therefore the messages they take away with them. The decision to reproduce Unique Forms of Continuity in Space in bronze starting in the 1930’s completely altered the meaning of the work. The shining bronze finishes of the new casts catch the light in ways that the original plaster could not, which has the potential to dramatically alter a viewer’s experience of the work. This approach to materials illustrates the shifting ideologies of sculpture over the first few decades of the twentieth century. Before, sculpture was a record of an image in a given material. Boccioni chose to use plaster, which allowed him to make as many modifications as he wanted, to record his understanding of dynamism through space. A postmodern view of materials is that a sculpture is the image derived from the creative possibilities inherent to the chosen material. When bronze was chosen to recreate Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, it lent its own qualities to the sculpture and therefore added and subtracted from the original meaning that Boccioni intended. In her essay Truth to Material: Bronze, on the Reproducibility of Truth, Alexandra Parigoris summarizes this thought when she says that the posthumous bronze casts of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space “obviously do not adhere to its creator’s published statements but they evidence an important development in twentieth-century sculpture, namely, the
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equation between sleek, polished metal surfaces and modernity, which has contributed to make[it] an icon of what is truly modern in pre-Second World War sculpture.”22 Although the original sculpture was taken far out of context and reproduced in a material that Boccioni would have never chosen on his own, the bronze sculptures take on a new set of meaning in their modern lives. In order to better understand these later reproductions, it is important to regard them as artworks from the year in which they were cast rather than when the form was conceived. Boccioni’s Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture rejects the use of bronze and marble due to their traditional importance and relation to outdated sculptural formulas of the past. He explicitly urges his readers to “destroy the literary and traditional ‘dignity’ of marble and bronze statues.”23 The Futurist movement was dedicated to freeing themselves from the restraints of tradition, and the use of bronze does the opposite. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is meant to depict a fleeting moment, a futuristic man’s leap forward into space. Bronze weighs him down, keeping him on Earth with heavy, cubic plinths bound to his feet. Taking all of this into consideration, the use of bronze to reproduce Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is contradictory to the meaning of the work, the artist’s intention and the values of his artistic movement.
After observing how important materials were to Boccioni’s sculptures, the reproduction of one of his works in a different medium stands out as problematic. With his early works, many different materials came into play so that he could convey the intersection of unique parts that made up one sculptural whole. This decision was well thought out and mirrored the Futurist manifesto that he had previously written. Moving forward from assemblage, Boccioni once again carefully chose to execute his sculptures in plaster. This time around the decision was practical, due to plaster’s ability to change whenever Boccioni needed to edit his striding figures or whenever scientific news altered his outlook. In its original plaster state, the sculpture invited its viewer to contemplate the form of speed and the perfect man striding into the future. The imperfections of the white plaster are one of the few preservations of Boccioni’s own spirit, with his artistic signature bound to the material. The idea of authenticity and meaning is reflected in Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” when he states: “The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter.”24 When someone besides the artist handles their sculpture and creates a cast, they strip it of its historical authenticity and a great
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Boccioni and the Posthumous Cast
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deal of its connotations. Though copies of sculptures have been made throughout the history of art, the posthumous bronze casts of Boccioni’s greatest work seem much more like betrayal. Around the same time, the death and subsequent posthumous casts of Raymond Duchamp-Villon’s The Horse in 1914 reflects the same phenomena. Art historians argue that the bronze casts, which are also much larger than the original plaster, “distort the experience of sculpture in modern times” and do not represent the choices of the artist.25 Raymond DuchampVillon wanted his sculpture to be cast in polished steel, but his brother, who made it his responsibility to carry out the task of casting the sculpture, could not afford it. Boccioni never explicitly stated that he did or did not want his sculptures to be cast. So, while Unique Forms of Continuity in Space and The Horse were both cast in bronze after the artists’ deaths, at least it is clear that Duchamp-Villon wanted his Cubist sculpture to be made of metal. Boccioni’s surprising and early death stripped him of his opportunity to dictate the future of his greatest work, leaving it in the hands of his contemporaries and museum experts later on. Who initially decided to take Boccioni’s plaster masterpiece and set it in bronze is unknown, as is their motive for doing so. Perhaps it was out of preservation, so that Unique Forms of Continuity in Space would not be lost or destroyed like the rest of Boccioni’s innovative sculptural works. Regardless, it is very likely that Boccioni would be opposed to the bronze casts,
considering the harsh limitations of Futurist sculpture and their disdain for the traditional material. Additionally, the number of bronze reproductions that were produced is very high. Fourteen of these glowing, striding figures exist across the world. This may be the reason why Unique Forms of Continuity in Space appears in every art history survey course. It symbolizes the Italian Futurist movement, which had a short but exciting run. And in turn, it also has come to symbolize all Italian art, even earning a spot on the back side of the Italian Euro coin. The sculpture that was never meant to be set in bronze is now known as the most successful portrayal of motion in three dimensions, highlighted by a reflective golden sheen that catches the light and dazzles us all. Boccioni’s triumphant handling of the fourth dimension deserves the title of masterpiece. The original plaster cast of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is an Italian treasure. If it had been preserved with great care, the bronze reproductions would not have been necessary, and people would still travel long distances to see Boccioni’s sculpture. The many posthumous casts of the sculpture take attention away from the original, and as Walter Benjamin pointed out, authenticity is also lost. The question of the posthumous cast will most likely persist for decades to come. While the originality of an artwork is special, the need to sell more art and propagate important pieces across the globe will always be a priority for some. The postmodern urge to recreate Unique Forms of Continuity in Space in bronze was an unfortunate one, and it is interesting to contemplate how Boccioni would feel about the existence of fifteen different versions of his sculpture, as well as his worldwide fame because of them.
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References Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production.” Philosophy Archive @ Marxists.org (website), accessed April 19, 2013, http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm Boccioni, Umberto. “Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture.” In Futurist Manifestos, edited by Umbro Apollonio, 51-66. Boston, MA: MFA Publications, 1970. Henderson, Linda D. “Italian Futurism and ‘The Fourth Dimension.’” Art Journal 41, no. 4 (Winter, 1981). Accessed April 28, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/776440. Marinetti, F.T. “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism.” In Futurist Manifestos, edited by Umbro Apollonio, 19-24. Boston, MA: MFA Publications, 1970. Martin, Marianne W. Futurist Art and Theory: 1909-1915. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Parigoris, Alexandra. “Truth to Material: Bronze, on the Reproducibility of Truth.” In Sculpture and Its Reproductions, edited by Anthony Hughes and Erich Ranfft, 131-152. London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1997. "THE COLLECTION." MoMA.org. Museum of Modern Art, n.d. Web. 02 May 2013.
"Umberto Boccioni: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1990.38.3)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1990.38.3 (October 2006) Wilson, William. “Umberto Boccioni- Faux Revolutionary?” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 1988. Accessed April 21, 2013.
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Alberto Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
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Alberto Giacometti The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture Ani Mnatsakanyan Junior, Art History (Interactive Media and the Culture of New Technologies Minor) This paper explores artist Alberto Giacometti’s post World War II sculptures and paintings, highlighting his perceptions of space, the void, and the relationship between sculptures, paintings, and the audience. It also presents a biographical reading of Giacometti’s work by expressing his post war anxieties and horrors. In order to successfully express one’s self through the arts, generations of artists have always challenged the traditionally accepted notions of the past generation artists. The persistent quest for self-expression has led many artists to the exploration and discovery of new medium and style, generally reflecting upon the artist’s personal turmoil and political and social evolutions. The artist Alberto Giacometti, himself being the son of an artist, evolved as an artist throughout his career as a result of his exploration within both sculpture and painting. Even throughout his associations with different avant-garde groups such as the Surrealists and Cubists, within Giacometti’s work can be noted a prominent pattern of caged artworks, expressing an avid interest in the void and the spatial qualities of his artwork. However, his interest in the void and space increases drastically after the Second World War, exemplified not only in his sculptural cages but in his paintings as well. Haunted by his own personal terrors and changes brought upon him during the chaotic era of World War II, Alberto Giacometti created both sculptures and paintings that challenged and blurred the lines between the two mediums. While physically taking up space in the viewer’s reality, Giacometti’s post World War II works such as The Cage (1950) create spaces of their own, overstepping the boundaries of both painting and sculpture while successfully
communicating Giacometti’s reflections and anxieties brought on by the war.
Alberto Giacometti, The Cage (First Version), 1950, Bronze, 91.12 x 36.51 x 33.97 cm. Ahmanson Building, Floor 2, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
As a young artist, Giacometti showed great promise and talent, sparking the interest of both groups of Surrealists: the orthodox Surrealists led by Breton and the
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Alberto Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
rebellious Surrealists led by Bataillle. While both groups were interested in the same topics of sexuality, anger, psychoanalysis and alchemy, they differed in their approach to dealing with human aggression. While Breton aimed to convert the human aggression into a greater spirituality, Bataille strictly opposed the Bretonian manner and did not believe in the “higher aim.”26 As an artist who had joined the Surrealists later on during the movement, Giacometti put in much effort to reach out to his viewers. He would create art in order for others to see them, intentionally attempting to reach out to them.27 Later on, eventually choosing to join Breton, he made The Suspended Ball during 1930-1931, a sculpture that attracted the two divisions of Surrealists despite their differences in views. While Bataille read the sculpture as sadistic with “deeply felt elements of Giacometti’s personality,” Breton and his followers saw the occult, sexuality, and alchemy, drawing upon the “loyalty, kindness, and generosity [that] were also part of his character.”28 Much more prominent than the sculpture’s themes of sexuality, sadism, and alchemy, however, seems to be time and the “third element ‘in reality’ that had ‘captivated’ Giacometti alongside appearance and space: motion.”29 Due to the fact that the sculpture is Surrealist, the stress on the “reality” of motion and space are important. The sculpture therefore extends further than the surreal and places just as much importance on the physical and formal elements of the sculpture.
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Alberto Giacometti, Suspended Ball, 1930-1931, Plaster and Metal, 61 cm, Tate Gallery, London.
The importance of the sculpture’s formal qualities is apparent through the choice of title, which, Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst in particular, believed to be very essential to the artwork in general. Before the physically descriptive title of Suspended Ball (1930-1931) chosen by Salvador Dalí, Giacometti had named the sculpture Hour of Traces, calling upon the notions of time and movement. Unlike Dalí and Ernst, Giacometti never cared much for titles or found the need of titles, with the exception of their use during his showings. However, during his Surrealist period, he attempted to choose poetic titles that seemed fit for the work.30 Thus, in this sense, Giacometti’s original chosen title, Hour of Traces should not be overlooked, as it
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Laurie Wilson, Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 102. 27 David Sylvester, Looking at Giacometti (New York: Henry Holt and Co.), 140-141. 28 Laurie Wilson, Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 103. 29 Ulf Kuster, Alberto Giacometti: Space, Figure, Time (Ostfildern: Hatfe Cantz Verlang, 2009), 60.!
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expresses the importance of the kinetic and timely aspects of the sculpture. Giacometti made three versions of Suspended Ball (1930-1931), one in wood and two in plaster, all of which include a ball hovering over a crescent, attached by a wire. The objects are also suspended in mid air, enclosed by a cage. The sculpture itself is very contradictory; the cage creates a barrier between the space of the viewer and the space of the crescent and the ball, not only distinguishing the space of the viewer and the objects, but also limiting the interaction of the viewer and the object. However, the invisible barrier does not actually serve to constrain the space of the objects. The ball is in a fragile position with the ability to move. This movement of the ball would therefore cause it to cross the cage’s bars and enter the space of the viewer. Thus, though the cage is attempting to limit the hovering ball’s space and create a sense of timelessness, its kinetic abilities transforms the sculpture into one that embodies the contradictory ideas of “the intersection of time and motion, the solidification of time, the transformation of time into space” that Breton often spoke of.31 Time and motion seem to be parallel ideas, contributing equally to an object’s presence within the real world. If time is stopped, then the motion coinciding with it must pause as well. However, the ball and crescent moon are caught frozen in the midst of time, within the cage. Yet, the viewer knows that the sculpture holds within it the power of movement, thus breaking off the unification of time and motion. Furthermore, while time cannot literally be solidified, the object assumes timelessness with the psychological knowledge that it can move. Yet, it is still immobile in its place for the moment, creating a solidified break in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )'!Laurie Wilson, Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic,
between the time of its movement. Lastly, the sculpture has spatial qualities that play an immense role in the timelessness and movement of the sculpture. As the time freezes with the sculpture, it also breaks off from the viewer’s world, which still continues to proceed with actual, unstoppable time. By caging it off from the viewer’s world, the ball and the crescent are also caged away from the world’s concepts of time. As a result of its cage and personal area, time is transformed into space, resulting in yet another contradiction. All three contradictions somehow rely on the psychology and subconscious knowledge of the viewer, without which, the sculpture would be incomprehensible. Giacometti’s fascination of motion of Suspended Ball (1930-1931) also plays psychological mind games with the viewer. Though the viewer may not have the permission to physically interact with the sculpture, the sculpture’s form and placement of the ball places the thought in the viewer’s mind that he or she does have the actual ability to interact with the work. The sculpture therefore requires the audience’s attention in its entirety in order to show off its capabilities to function similar to a mind game. The playfulness of the sculpture is not only dependent on the audience’s perception and the ball’s fragile placement over the crescent moon. The space that it is set within also functions as part of the psychological mind game, enabling the viewer to recognize that the designated space within the cube is necessary for the movement of the ball.32 Once again, even the psychological mind game essentially becomes another one of Breton’s contradictions about the meeting of
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perception and memory.33 While the audience perceives the sculpture to be kinetic, it also relies on the viewer’s memory of play and motion in order to know how to interact with it, both physically or mentally. As part of the Surrealist movement, Giacometti placed much importance on the subject matter of the work - a notion that he continued to stress throughout his career. However, his position within the Surrealists, according to Giacometti, was a transitional phase. Even though throughout his Surrealist career he showed the essence of his later “Maturity” works, Giacometti’s excommunication from the Surrealists was marked by his return to work from the model. Instead of holding a public excommunication, he was eventually abandoned by the rest of the Surrealists.34 Regardless, the influence of the cage in his prominent Surrealist work, Suspended Ball (1930-1931), was apparent in both his later sculptures and paintings. After the Second World War, Giacometti’s sculptures and paintings began to express his growing interest in the void and space. His shift in artistic execution and interest was marked by his shift in thought after the war. By 1945, Giacometti experienced a change in his worldviews. According to Giacometti in a letter he wrote to Pierre Schneider in 1961, “Before, reality had been something familiar, banal, or let’s say stable. This completely stopped in 1945…Going out on to the boulevard I had the feeling of being
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faced with something I had never seen before, with a complete change in reality – the unseen, the altogether unknown, the marvelous…Movement was a series of points of stillness.”35 Taking into consideration the importance of movement in his Surrealist works, Giacometti’s shift in thought about the ‘captivating’ realistic element of movement depicts an important change within his view of the world and his art as well. What Giacometti explains within the passage about the changes in reality is a reflection upon the turbulence he had experienced. Leaving his studio in Paris, Alberto and his brother Diego returned to Switzerland to reunite with their mother, never being able to fully adapt to living outside of Paris.36 Three years later he returned to Paris, initiating a short lived relationship with an Englishwoman named Isabel, eventually leading him and his brother Diego to move in with his future wife, Annette. Eventually, he also developed emotional and psychological distress, constantly fearing abandonment and engulfment.37 Emotionally, Giacometti had become very unstable. With his personal life in shambles and “reality” becoming somewhat unfamiliar to him, Giacometti began creating works that eventually defined him as an artist during his Maturity years from 1948-1954. Both his caged sculptures and paintings and his anorexic walking or standing figures from his maturity years had a somewhat unique relationship to space. The importance of spatial qualities and the emergence of the Void as a concept became more apparent not only through visual
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and the Man (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 109.! )*!Edward Lucie-Smith, Lives of the Great 20thCentury Artists (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), accessed April 30, 2013, http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/ giacometti.html.
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properties of his sculptures and paintings, but also through Giacometti’s constant reminder of his interest in space in interviews and letters. In 1949, Giacometti claimed that, “space does not exist, you have to create it… There is only an illusion of space.”38 Space, therefore, only becomes a certainty when an object or sculpture exists to reveal the emptiness within that specific area. Giacometti practices his assertion through any of his later post World War II figures of thin, corpse-like figures. These figures, such as Standing Woman (1948), create a space around them. Her existence as a sculpture within the gallery or museum creates awareness of the surrounding space. The sculpture itself lacks the fat or plumpness of ancient sculptures. While ancient sculptures occupy space and direct the viewer’s eyes to the curves and details of the sculpture, Standing Woman’s (1948) lack of fat makes the viewer recognize the vast emptiness in the space surrounding it.
Alberto Giacometti, Standing Woman, 1948 (cast 1949), Painted Bronze, 166 x 16.5 x 34.2 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
While Giacometti successfully uses his figures to create the space, the same cannot be said about The Cage (First Version) (1950). Giacometti’s approach to his caged sculptures is deeply rooted in his childhood adoration of stage design.39 Though only a few of his designs were intended for an actual stage, the respect for the stage is clearly identified through his
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Alberto Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
sculptures. The theatre is a space set off from the audience and enclosed within an invisible barrier. Within the stage are portrayed actors and their emotions for the audience. Similarly, Giacometti’s execution of his sculptures suggests an association to stages – occupying space within the viewer’s reality while being able to maintain a certain distance. In explaining Giacometti’s relationship to space, Sartre stated that, “he compresses space, so as to drain it off its exteriority.”40 The Cage (First Version) (1950) clearly compresses a certain amount of space and separates it from its surroundings. In this case, the space within the sculpture no longer acts as just ‘space.’ The space becomes an important part in the perception of the figures within the cage. Therefore, the ‘space’ within the bars of the cage is transformed into a Void. The Void, rather than simply being surrounding space, is emptiness within the sculpture that affects the overall viewing of The Cage (1950). Furthermore, it is not simply an empty space, as that would suggest that the space could be filled and occupied. The presence of space, however, is not actually felt if it is not filled.41 The Void, on the other hand, suggests an emptiness that is created by the absence of materials. It is felt strongly and exits only when and where there is something lacking, unlike space. The Void emphasizes the “nothingness” and insinuates the horrors of the sculpture. The Void, therefore, is present within the cage and acts as part of the sculpture.
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Giacometti’s 1950 sculpture The Cage (First Version) follows in the footsteps of the Suspended Ball (1930-1931) with the inclusion of a cage enclosing figures. However, the enclosure of The Cage (First Version) (1950) serves a completely different purpose. The sculpture’s cage acts as a framing device, separating the figures within the cage from the viewer. Traditionally, sculpture occupies the viewer’s space and takes on a threedimensional presence within the viewer’s reality. On the other hand, painting occupies the viewer’s space but is not actually part of the viewer’s reality. The painting creates a world of its own, broken off from the viewer’s reality and limited within the constraints of the frame. Similarly, while The Cage (First Version) (1950) takes up the viewer’s space, it does not have the physical presence within the viewer’s reality. Similar to a painting, the figures with within the cage have their own space and reality. They do not have the ability to cross over to the viewer’s space, unlike Suspended Ball (1929-1930). Suspended Ball (1930-1931), though it is caged off from the viewer’s reality, still interacts with the viewer and somewhat becomes a part of the viewer’s reality, staying true to the traditional aspects of sculptural interaction. However, the fact that it is completely broken off from the viewer’s space without any notable motion within the sculpture gives The Cage (First Version) (1950) more painterly qualities rather than sculptural. Aside from the materials used, The Cage (First Version) functions similar to a painting. The Cage’s (First Version) (1950) similarity to painting becomes apparent through the sculptural base and the notable transformations from the first version to the final version. A painting is framed simply through a frame in accordance to the size of the canvas, placed on a wall located within
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paintings as well.43 With painting and portraiture playing such a grand role in Giacometti’s childhood and early artistic years, Giacometti was faced with the problem of recognizing himself as a painter or a sculpture.44 However, by dedicating his time equally to both painting and sculpture after the Second World War, Giacometti assumed the position of both painter and sculptor.45 Furthermore, by contributing just as much time to his paintings, it was inevitable that Giacometti’s later portraits would have the same captivating and haunting presence as his later sculptural works.
the space of a museum. Though framing a sculpture is much more abstract due to the fact that it has an uncanny presence within the viewer’s reality, the typical framing element of sculpture would be its base and its location within the museum. On the other hand, rather than serving as an actual base, the base of the sculpture is also included within the limitations of the bars of the cage. The sculpture is framed through the bars of the cage, similar to the four edges of a painting’s canvas. Even though the sculpture is being framed with the bars, they are still an essential part of the sculpture. The frame and base are part of the sculpture, limiting the sculpture within itself, just as a painting limits itself within the frame of the canvas. The framing technique transforms The Cage drastically in the final version, creating a closer semblance to his paintings. The final version of The Cage (1950) is heightened with tall legs with the figures situated on a thicker base. Although Giacometti expressed his desires to abandon the plinths, he still places the figures at eye level without the need of additional bases provided by the museum or gallery.42 Similarly, painting is usually placed at eye level with the viewer. By using such visual qualities in his sculptures, he allows sculpture to have the same visual affects for the viewer as a painting would. Giacometti’s paintings, similar to his sculptures, explore the void and challenge the interactions between the viewer and the painting. Raised in a very artistic household, it was expected of Alberto to follow in his father’s path and become an artist. With the influence of his father’s post-Impressionistic work, Alberto was encouraged to devote himself to art. Eventually, those who voluntarily modeled for Giovanni Giacometti began sitting for Alberto’s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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over the entire canvas. Furthermore, thin, painting lines encage the portrait of Isaku and the space around him. Similar to his paintings, rather than creating space, Giacometti creates a Void – a hollowed area that lacks the presence of typical figures or landscapes, yet still makes the viewer aware of the “nothingness” around the portrait. The painted lines confine Isaku within his given area, creating the same affect as his caged sculptures. Though Isaku seems to have been caged away within the lines of the painting, he seems to occupy a presence within the viewer’s space as well, creating the uncanny feel that his sculptures possess. Somehow, while they are caged away from the real world, they occupy the viewer’s space as well.46 In expressing the Void and the sculptural elements within the painting, Giacometti expressed his lack of interest in color. More important than color was the tone of the painting, which was possible through sculptural modeling.47 Consequently, in order to successfully extend “real confrontations of void and mass, not illusions of space or form” to his paintings as well, Giacometti preferred monotonous color schemes, which increased his paintings’ relationship to sculpture.48 Rather than creating the illusion of a background with color, he brings emptiness to the painting. Although the canvas is not literally empty, as it is covered with paint, the monochromatic approaches create empty surroundings that seem to continue for an infinite amount of space. Both Giacometti’s paintings and sculptures were also successful reflections upon Giacometti’s psychological standing. Due to the fact that Giacometti’s paintings
Alberto Giacometti, The Cage (Final Version), 1950, Bronze, 175x37x39.6 cm, Foundation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris.
Just as his sculptures had painterly qualities, Giacometti’s paintings included features that were used in his sculptures as well. Of the most apparent seems to be his attitude towards the Void within his paintings. In his Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara (1956), he places his model in the center of the canvas, seated with his arms placed on his lap. The actual portrait occupies only a portion of the painting, rather than taking
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Alberto Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
called for a closer interaction with other individuals, many of his models of his post war paintings noted Giacometti’s issues. Giacometti’s younger brother, Bruno, described that he felt like a slave when posing for the artist. One was not able to move at all, giving the artist a reputation of a tyrant. Furthermore, a common description was one of psychological possession, trapped within Giacometti’s workspace.49 As a result of Giacometti’s growing fears of abandonment after the war, he trapped his models within his workspace, and expressed that same entrapping through his portraiture. Caught within the limits set by the cages, Giacometti’s portraits and sculptures also reflect his changes in thought in regards to reality. Within the aforementioned quote about Giacometti’s transformation, he had described the changes he had experienced in regards to reality and motion. Within both versions of The Cage and his portraiture, time and movement seem to have no value, drastically shifting from his pre World War II Surrealist sculptures. His figures seem to be static and broken off from the actual time and motion of the real world. Furthermore, his growing engulfment is expressed with the bars of the cage, trapping the figures within their given space. Within their given spaces, the figures of his sculptures and portraits stand aloof, expressing no specific emotions, except for a cold, blank stare. Giacometti had shown his interest in the void and art’s relationship to space with his earliest works. However, as he grew as an artist, he was able to express his voice and show his approach more clearly, transitioning from the Surrealists into the artist that the world recognizes today. As the world evolved through the Second World War, Giacometti was transformed, challenging his previous artworks along !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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with the work of past artists, whilst successfully placing his innermost feelings and emotions within the work. Therefore, Alberto Giacometti’s post World War II works are considered to be the height of his artistic career, influencing young artists of many different backgrounds and artistic approaches. Extending further than simply just art, Giacometti’s post war work has been an influence in philosophy. However, Giacometti’s work, specifically in regards to space and the void and served as an influential aspect of the development of virtual reality and inhabiting different spaces. Giacometti’s cages have not simply expressed his unique approach to sculpture and painting, but they have become exemplary artworks for the advancement of contemporary art, thought, and technology.
Alberto Giacometti, Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara, oil on canvas, 81.28 x 64.77 cm. Ahmanson Building, floor 2, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Wilson, Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003)2!(IJ%!
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Alberto Giacometti: The Void and the Fine Line Between Painting and Sculpture
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References Brüderlin, Markus and Stooss, Toni. Alberto Giacometti: The Origin of Space. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010. Kuster, Ulf. Alberto Giacometti: Space, Figure, Time. Ostfildern: Hatfe Cantz Verlang, 2009. Lancher, Carolyn. “Alberto Giacometti: Painter and Sculptor,” MoMA Vol. 4, No.7 (Sep., 2001). Accessed March 21,2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4420614. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Lives of the Great 20th-Century Artists. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. Accessed April 30, 2013, http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/ giacometti.html. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Introduction to Alberto Giacometti: Exhibition of Sculptures, Paintings and Drawings: January 19 to February 14, 1948. New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1948. Sylvester, David. Looking at Giacometti. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Wilkin, Karen. “Sculpture in the Void: Giacometti at MoMA,” The New Criterion, (Dec. 2001), Accessed March 21, 2013. Wilson, Laurie. Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003.
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
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Rauschenberg Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective Alan Prieto Senior, Art History Rauschenberg’s material eclecticism functioned as a means to convey symbolic messages regarding the cultural and social anxieties New York encountered during the postwar epoch. Defying conservative ideologies of material essentialism, Rauschenberg manipulated his eclectic sculptures as a means to articulate a miscellany of identities oppressed during 1950s New York. Rauschenberg’s multi-media approach inspired by urban debris in order to construct self-aware compositions regards Rauschenberg as the forerunner of postmodern philosophy. Regarded among the most prolific artists of the postwar epoch was Robert Rauschenberg, a New York-based artist highly known through his sculptural Combines. Throughout the course of a fifty year long artistic practice, longevity of Rauschenberg’s career supplied the opportunity to experiment with a diversity of mediums: dance, graphic design, painting, sculpture and performance. Challenging the canon of Abstract Expressionism, the dominant artistic style of the midcentury, Rauschenberg’s innovations to the established movement regard him as the harbinger of a full-blown postmodernist art50. A vehicle in Rauschenberg’s questioning of the New York School originated through incorporation of medium plurality into his works, disregarding essentialist notions of medium-specificity. Mixed media of Rauschenberg’s artwork prompt the provocative inquiry of defining art, especially in a historical context driven by classification. Through the juxtaposition of evidently unrelated materials, the eclectic sculptural Combines by Robert Rauschenberg provide its viewers with plentiful yet codified information regarding the artist’s biography and identity. Developing a creative perspective too ahead
of its time, Rauschenberg’s treatment of medium positions him as the prototype of Postmodernism, mainly highlighted through an implicit gesture of his queer identity. As indicated by its prefix, Postmodernism suggests the continuation of Modernism through an exchange of critical ideas. The term has been subject to harsh criticism, as it is commonly applied to describe contemporary practices of a broad scope of disciplines, ranging from art criticism to economics, and from cinema to political science. The extensive ground which postmodernism envelops has stimulated heated discussions on how to concretely describe the term. Todd Gitlin constructs the most persuasive definition, defining it as a constellation of styles in cultural works: pastiche; blankness; a sense of exhaustion; a mixture of levels, forms, and styles in cultural works, commitment to irony; acute self-consciousness about the formal and pleasure in the play of surfaces51. Through this definition, it can be concluded that the postmodern artist—and even the postmodern individual—rejects the submission to established patterns of aesthetic and thought. Rather, articulation of a distinct voice is preferred. Rauschenberg’s Combines beautifully fit into this rubric, as
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Wood, Paul. "Rauschenberg and Cage." Varieties of Modernism. New Haven: Yale UP in Association with the Open University, 2004. 273. Print.
Gitlin, Todd. "The Postmodern Predicament." Wilson Quarterly 3rd ser. 13 (1989): 67. JSTOR. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.
50
51
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
these standards are echoed by selection of the sculpture’s materials, which challenged the cultural hegemony of his period. A more precise method of grasping postmodernism is by understanding it as a condition rather than associating it as a particular style. For the artist, the reason for mixing forms and styles could have been a product of cultural deterioration and uncertainty. Does postmodernism entail the loss of originality? English critic Raymond Williams attempts to specify postmodernism as a way of apprehending the world and one’s place—including placelessness—in it52. This notion of placement loss was evident to Rauschenberg’s biography, as his identity as a homosexual could have been used to neglect him social prominence in midcentury New York City, a predominantly homophobic environment. Self-aware of his sexuality, Rauschenberg approached sculpture as a means to convey his sexuality through a highly codified system of representations and symbols. The mixing of forms, layers and styles through a self-aware perspective is highly evident in Man with White Shoes (1954). Despite working under the preeminence of the modernist style of Abstract Expressionism, a postmodernist interpretation can be devised in Rauschenberg’s Combines. Postmodernism was not restricted upon manifestation of the sculpture itself but it additionally dwelled as artistic temperament. Prior to experimenting with silkscreen painting in 1962, Rauschenberg remarked that “painting relates to both art and life, I try to act in the gap between the two. I thought an honest work should incorporate all these elements, which were and are a reality”53. While the quote prologues a new phase of
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Rauschenberg’s artistry, this opinion is nonetheless relevant to a formal discussion of sculpture. Postmodernism can be understood as a condition. Skepticism that entails postmodernism is represented upon the assortment of materiality utilized in his sculptures, as these are not purist forms of conventional sculptural medium. Rather, Rauschenberg’s preferred medium were objects common to quotidian life—items which the viewer was familiar with. Apprehension for relating art to life becomes essential under the condition of Man with White Shoes is to be read through a postmodernist standpoint. Two reasons vouch my hypothesis: it hints the collapse of art as elitist and dependence on urbanity.
Rauschenberg, Untitled Combine (Man with White Shoes), 1995. Combine: oil, newspaper, photographs, postcard, fabric, printed reproductions, mirror, shoes and socks on wood structure with stuffed Dominique hen The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Panza Collection.
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Ibid., 68. Kotz, Mary Lynn. "The Man in the White Shoes." Rauschenberg, Art and Life. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. 99. Print.
53
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
abandoned industrial loft55. Proximity to the industrial environment immediately became a major source to Rauschenberg’s vision, which develops as a leitmotif throughout his repertoire of Combines. As New York experienced further industrial and urban renovations, increase of modernity prompted larger production of debris; therefore, larger resources for Rauschenberg. An essential feature of the artist’s Lower Manhattan environment resulted from the discarded and worn-out objects that were often thrown into alleys left for disposal56. Cliché aside, another man’s junk became Rauschenberg’s treasure. An important compositional factor present in Man in White Shoes—and therefore, all upcoming Combines—is that every individual sculptural constituent was not crafted by the artist’s hand but instead selected among fragments of New York refuse. Choice of materiality present in Man in White Shoes classifies it as a postmodernist design if the conditions of style constellation and acute self-awareness by the artist are observed. While the sculpture pleasures itself as the materialization of “anti-art” through its employment of unconventional media, its haphazard form is nonetheless product of a meticulous compositional arrangement rather than spontaneous conception. By utilizing urban garbage as raw material, the work composes beauty out of discord57. Depiction of the medium’s hackneyed and deteriorated conditions due to urbanity becomes significant within the postmodernist sculptural agenda. The assemblage of various universal objects
Man with White Shoes is a freestanding Combine consisting of the following materials: oil, pencil, crayon, paper, canvas, fabric, newspaper, photographs, wood, mirror, leather shoes, dried grass and a Dominique hen54. Textural range of the surface through multiplicity of components deteriorated the masterpiece as exclusive for the elite and encouraged an urban vernacular. Incorporation of ordinary things arranged in a strategic composition and classifying it as a “sculpture” productively echoes Rauschenberg’s intent of relating art to life. Plurality of common objects strategically arranged and elevated to the appearance of “sculpture” productively echoes Rauschenberg’s intent of relating art to life. The grain of Rauschenberg’s anti-essentialism can be traced as a gesture responding to cultural and social tensions happening in midcentury New York. Contrasting to his contemporaries—de Kooning, Newman and Pollock to name a few—who passionately advocated a puritanical treatment of paint in their large-scale canvases, Rauschenberg’s resourcefulness eroded avant-garde ambitions and opted for pictorial representation. Man in White Shoes personifies the decay between the concepts of “High” verses “Low” art through its medium plurality. The major catalyst which allowed Rauschenberg to appropriate unconventional junk and classifies it as sculpture was the development of New York City as a major global metropolis. Considering the proliferation of New York in the postwar context as the epicenter of Modernism becomes centerpiece in our discussion of Rauschenberg’s artistry. Upon his return to New York from Europe in 1953, Rauschenberg lived continuously in the shadows of the city’s mid-century transformation; his first residence an
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Shannon, Joshua. "Black Market: Rauschenberg." The Disappearance of Objects: New York Art and the Rise of the Postmodern City. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. 112. Print. 56 Mattison, Robert Saltonstall. "Urban Experiences." Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. 47. Print 57 Gitlin, 69.
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Ibid., 89.
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
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facilitates a rapport between artwork and its beholder, as their main form of communication relies on a vernacular surface. Contrasting to the monolithic abstracted gestural representations of Rauschenberg’s contemporaries, both the individual units of Man with White Shoes and the sculptural whole operate through dependence on personal interpretation as the finishing effect of the overall composition. This culminates Rauschenberg’s artistic practice as connecting “that gap” between art and life58. Amidst the numerous components located within the sculpture’s controlled representational turmoil, there are three specific elements that are valuable to our discussion of urbanity, the found object and identity; photograph of a gentleman dressed in a white suit, the discrete positioning of a mirror at its foot and the adjacent stuffed Dominique hen. Housed in Los Angeles at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Man with White Shoes is relatively stationed on the center of its gallery, privileging viewers to an all-around perspective. Engaging with the sculpture through various perspectives heightens the bystander’s sensitivity of the complexity of Rauschenberg’s artistry, as it demonstrates a balance between the artist’s creativity and obsession with the dilapidated. Shocking upon experiencing this work is the subtle inclusion of a mirror laid before the image of the gentleman in the white suit. If Rauschenberg was in fact concerned with emphasizing the constructed surface of the sculpture, the mirror enforces this objective. The mirror reflects various degrees of pictorial depth present throughout the sculpture that are otherwise not easily perceived upon its frontal encounter, justifying a comprehensive constructed treatment of the sculptural unit. Its subtle positioning could be a supplementary
instrument of including the viewer into the artwork, as one’s countenance is temporarily manifested within the sculpture. Regardless of the myriad of textures inhabiting the surface, frequent collaging of photographs becomes the foremost motif. Layering upon layering of pictorial symbols transforms Man with White Shoes as a postmodernist sculpture, as it profoundly depends upon the construction of its surface. This notion of construction resonates with the dialogue of Rauschenberg’s modernist New York, a period in which construction sites and further urban planning became regular spectacles to locals. Interdependence of imagery functions more significantly as a vehicle to translate the otherwise ambiguous roles and intentions behind these eclectic objects. This becomes especially symbolic if Rauschenberg anticipated to inexplicitly gesture his identity through his art. Inclusion of the miscellany of seemingly random articles in Rauschenberg’s work generates archaic chains of connotation, whose result of these uncontrollable meanings conveys a message of uncertainty, of slippage, of illegibility and fragmentation59. While Shannon is skeptical of these interpretations, I challenge her pessimism. Rauschenberg challenged ideologies of the Modernist aesthetic through his preference of catastrophic, however meticulous, compositions alluding to his urban milieu while simultaneously encompassing the postmodernist condition. If postmodernism is to be defined as a condition consequent of cultural exhaustion and recycling, in which artistic expression is only attainable through the borrowing of a range of unrelated sources, and then Man with White Shoes successfully fits into this attitude. Shannon’s opinion is however justified, as postmodernism fosters the transaction of opinions. Ambiguity of the
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58
59
Shannon, 102.
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Shannon, 105.
Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
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object’s purpose is what defines this work as postmodern, as it relies on common knowledge of its components symbols to construct a working interpretation. The machismo attitudes proudly displayed by the Abstract Expressionists were countered by the homosexuality common among the new aesthetic group; John Cage, Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg60. This group purposely kept their identities private, maintaining interactions with their heterosexual colleagues rare due to enforced homophobic politics of the midcentury. Since Rauschenberg was denied the opportunity to openly express his sexual orientation, he nonetheless found conformity of indirectly suggesting his sexual identity through the Combines. Addressing the pervasiveness of homophobia within the larger context of a McCarthyist New York allowed Rauschenberg to incorporate satirical remarks of the social norm in his works. These tongue-in-cheek comments were manifested visually. The image of the Dandy in Man with White Shoes becomes the essential spokesman of articulating a discreet yet prominent queer identity associated with Rauschenberg’s Combines. The man portrayed in the white ensemble is more specifically a dandy, a self-important male conscientious of his physical appearance and the constant desire for all things chic. Illustration of the selfobsessed man, whose narcissism is manifested through his stylish matching ensemble, functions as the antithesis of hyper-masculine, heteronormative ideologies dominated by the postwar generation and the Abstract Expressionists. Reiterating superficiality of the dandy is the presence of a mirror intentionally sited before him. As viewers immediately retract from their unprecedented reflection, the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dandy shamelessly pleasures from his reflection. Whereas shifting traditions of the twenty-first century allow men to value selfmaintenance, this practice did not form part of the masculine mythology of postwar gender norms. Both a humorous and ironic connotation is linked through portrayal of the gentleman, especially since dandyism became outdated by 1950. However, it did initiate conversation of the portrayed man’s sexuality. Outfitted in an elegantly tailored suit, the dandy lacks overt virility. His musculature, which is primary upon indicating strength and masculinity, is hidden through the various layers of his fashionable ensemble. Furthermore, the gentleman is not donning a white T-shirt, a staple of men’s undergarments during the postwar epoch61. Reception of the dandy could therefore be read as the symbol of covert homosexuality. Adjacent to the portrait of the dandy is a stuffed Dominique hen; a readymade from Rauschenberg’s scavenges. Their proximity creates both contrasts in texture and spatial dimensions; the dandy is a flat antique image attached on a vertical panel, while the chicken is a freestanding threedimensional object located closer to the sculpture’s borders. This play on space establishes a hierarchy, as the Dominique hen is smaller in scale compared to the dandy. Recall that randomness becomes primary upon experiencing Rauschenberg’s artwork. While the combination of myriad different images challenges a general interpretation of the work, the viewer nonetheless accepts the presence of the numerous photographs. According to John Cage, “each thing that is there is a subject”62. Symbolic interpretations of the Dominique hen are minimal in the discussion of the sculpture, yet significant to Rauschenberg’s creative ethic. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wood. "The Post-Abstract Expressionist Avant Garde: Social and Sexual Contexts." 317.
62
60
61
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Ibid., 176 Kotz, 91.
Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, the Dominique hen is characterized as good foragers for food and shelter, while their barred plumage coloration makes the bird less conspicuous to predators63. These survival adaptations parallel much of Rauschenberg’s scavenges within urban rubbish for objects to incorporate into his sculptures, while simultaneously reflecting homophobic attitudes of his historical timeframe. Indirect references to his sexuality through pictorial methods are a postmodernist tendency present in Rauschenberg’s work, as he constructs his identity through fragmentation based on source multiplicity. Rauschenberg continued to provoke audiences of devising concrete readings of his sculptures while incorporating subtle innuendo of his sexuality. The most successful attempt of this aesthetic is Monogram (1955-1959), the most controversial of Rauschenberg’s Combines and also his best-known work.
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Mounted on a platform of paint and collage, Monogram chronologically succeeds Man with White Shoes; however, being his most popular work, larger analysis and criticism has been dedicated to Monogram. The primary aesthetic feature of this Combine is the featuring of an Angora goat, which Rauschenberg purchased for fifteen dollars at a second-hand shop64. While the purchase of this figure defeats the purpose of the found object, Rauschenberg nonetheless rendered a deteriorated surface by splashing paint on the animal’s surface. In a sexualized analysis of Monogram, Robert Hughes wrote for The Shock of the New that “Goats are the oldest metaphors of priapic energy”65, suggesting a relationship between the goat as a symbol of male sexuality. Rauschenberg dismissed this interpretation: “a stuffed goat is special in the way that a stuffed goat is special. I wanted to see if I could integrate an object as exotic as that”66. A postmodernist ideology is discernible in Rauschenberg’s disagreement, as Hughes composed his analysis based through traditional art criticism that extends to hypothetical conclusions of the work beyond the artist’s biography and signature. Rauschenberg’s anti-essentialism in both form and thought enforces the postmodernist condition of relying purely on representations. Unfortunately, I disagree with Rauschenberg; I agree with Hughes’ proposal, as tendencies of incorporating sexual innuendo in sculptures develop as a pattern in his Combines. Queering of Rauschenberg is personified through the satirical undertone intended of his images. The dandy’s allwhite ensemble is ridiculous by contemporary fashion standards; assumedly
Rauschenberg, Monogram. 1959. Combine, assemblage, 3’6’x5’4’x5’4’.
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63
64
"American Livestock Breeds Conservancy: Dominique Chicken." Dominique Chicken. American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, n.d. Web. 04 May 2013.
Kotz, 90. Ibid. 66 Ibid. 65
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
it was equally risible and outdated back in the 1950s. Acknowledgement of an evident playfulness from Rauschenberg’s range of images distinguishes him from his Abstract Expressionists contemporaries, as these men adopted completely serious attitudes regarding the aesthetic and criticism of their paintings. Elevation of “Low” culture as “High” has been a recurring theme in the essay, with Man in White Shoes as our primary case study. An ideological transaction between both is manifested upon surface handling of Rauschenberg’s Combines. In Man in White Shoes, the mirror further enforces this critical notion of the all-round aesthetic of the sculptural unit, which indicates that the most unanticipated crevice as come in transaction with the artist’s hand. Surprisingly, the sculpture lacks stability: in fact, it is fragile. Rauschenberg’s version of urbanity consists of unprocessed and unwanted scraps from the city, generating a sense that everything is poorly stitched together67. As a response of sophisticated urban planning of 1950s New York, weak craftsmanship of Man with White Shoes articulates a kitsch finishing. Concepts of Camp and kitsch midcentury art are exclusively reserved upon the reading of queer art. Rauschenberg’s subject throughout his sculptural portfolio was contemporary culture. Primary reliance on popular imagery is classified under the spectrum of Pop Art, and many consider Rauschenberg fundamental to the development of the movement. Pop Art demonstrates an uneasy relationship with the heterosexual values of Abstract Expressionism, and these values reside in its Camp approach to seriousness and significant meaning68. Rothko was highly critical regarding the appropriate positioning of viewing of his monolithic
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color fields, while Pollock’s alcoholism is often related through psychoanalysis interpretations of his action-paintings. Concepts of Pop Art and Camp were not formulated until approximately a decade after Man with White Shoes. Defined by Susan Sontag, the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural, of artifice and exaggeration, in addition to the presence of a private code among small urban cliques69. Camp is not an aesthetic fixated in a specific timeframe but is a modern sensibility. The multiplicity of media and construction, unified with a postmodern interpretation dictates Man with White Shoes as a product of Camp and Pop, especially under the observation of Rauschenberg’s queer sexuality implied through mysterious symbols. Unintentionally developing a new style, the Rauschenberg technique laid much groundwork for which the Pop artists refined during the 1960s. The Pop artists habitually chose newly manufactured products, suggesting reliance on the commercial system, retaining the belief that social castoffs can be reused70. Distinctive of Rauschenberg by the later group of Pop artists was the evident obsession of expressing the neglected conditions of his objects. Silkscreens of the Pop artists such as Andy Warhol’s Liz (1965) meticulously preserved cleanliness of their manufactured prints, indicating a degree of femininity— queer—rather than an evident dramatic artistic gesture. Texture of the scrappily layered photographs in Man with White Shoes is expressed through obvious fraying of their edges and their antique golden filter. Consequently in Monogram, Rauschenberg defaced goat through violent colorful brushstrokes. Maybe Pop artists would have !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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69
Sontag, Susan. “Notes on Camp” Against Interpretation and other essays. New York, NY: Picador U.S.A., 2011. Print, 275. 70 Mattinson, 48. .
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Shannon, 109. 68 Wood, "You cannot be serious! Camp and the art of Larry Rivers." 329.
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
perhaps selected similar objects parallel to Rauschenberg’s taste, albeit be exhibited through their idealized conditions. Emphasis on surface and careful selection of common imagery is highly considered upon both creative perspectives. Affinity between Man with White Shoes with the Camp sensibility becomes palpable through the observer’s skepticism upon examining the sculpture. Through the overwhelming abundance of media applied throughout the entire surface of the sculpture, it presents the complicated decision to select a singular component and isolate it as the most important. However, the dandy and the stuffed hen will continue being our primary focus. Recognition of Camp in Man with White Shoes is achieved through observing every component in quotation marks71. It’s not a dandy but a “dandy”; it is not a stuffed hen but a “stuffed hen”. Through this Camp inclination, the viewer is permitted to mingle with the artwork humorously, dethroning the seriousness of the usual “High” connotation assigned to sculpture. Considering the various elements of the sculpture under the omnipresent quotation marks facilitates application of these symbols in a broader historical context, especially the artist’s biography. If Man with White Shoes is to be read as Camp, applying these pervasive quotation marks to the compositional whole is required. What constitutes Man with White Shoes under the canon of Modernist “sculpture”? After all, its craftsmanship is fragile and constructed through a myriad of unconventional objects. Rather than emphasizing the artist’s mastery of carving, Rauschenberg allowed his readymade objects to function autonomously, albeit maintaining compositional harmony. Interpreting these objects under the
spectrum of “art” becomes essential for Rauschenberg’s Combines, as their importance is granted upon the artificiality of their surface. Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface and style at the expense of content72. While Man with White Shoes is impractical in its sense of decorative art, it nonetheless grants authority to visual appeal rather than craftsmanship. Yet, the sculpture is neither elegant nor glamorous; it is a chaotic product embodying acute self-awareness of the unstable, filthy and loud qualities characteristic of midcentury—and contemporary—urban life. Rauschenberg challenged the Abstract Expressionist canon through his selectivity of media and preference of style over form while simultaneously questioning the authenticity and meaning of sculpture. This postmodernist inclination is heightened through subtle comments regarding his queer sexuality, relying on the Camp sensibility. While allusions to his homosexual identity through the outlet of Combines were courageous, Rauschenberg’s reserved demeanor restricted the extreme representation of his sexuality. His sexual references tend to be indirect rather than direct; they take the form of visual puns rather than gay manifestos73. To further disguise his homosexuality, which could be consequential through consistent use of male imagery, females played a substantial role as well. If Man with White Shoes is an example of Camp homosexuality, then Odalisque (1955-59) functions as its heterosexual counterpart, another Combine work that depicts the eroticized role of women through Art History. Odalisque continues Rauschenberg’s postmodernist aesthetic, although intertextual references emerge as the most significant element. In contrast to Man with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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72 73
Sontag, 280.
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Sontag, 287. Mattinson, “Space Exploration Works”. 138.
Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
White Shoes, prominence of sexual imagery is facilitated upon its primary encounter. Palpable representations of female sexuality shadow the underlying satire intended by Rauschenberg, justifying its Camp artifice. Female sexuality becomes the encompassing theme of Odalisque, as indicated by the sculpture’s title. An odalisque is a prostitute from Middle Eastern culture, whose main clientele consists of the Emperor or other high-ranking males of the court. The harem is emblematic of the sexualized female throughout Art History: Ingres’ Grand Odalisque (1814) as its most iconic representation. Considering the dominant patriarchal mid-set of postwar society, Rauschenberg intended Odalisque to fulfill the role as social critique, which is accomplished through the employment of symbols of male sexuality flanking various images of feminine sensuality. Similar to Man with White Shoes, the freestanding Odalisque allows its observation through numerous perspectives. This is a deliberate tactic intended by both the artist and the museum curator, as the bystander is invited to gaze at the sculpture attentively and selectively, paralleling the action of a patron selecting his harem. Its vertical construction made from a box open on two sides, topped with a rooster and fastened to a white bedpost allude to the phallus74. The “rooster” more accurately translates to a cock, the urban vernacular assigned to the penis, and a complement to the odalisque. Meanwhile, the bedpost violently impales a soft, white satin cushion; the verticality of the bedpost symbolizes the penetrative act while the satin materiality of the cushion represents the delicacy of female genitalia. The core of Odalisque, the rectangular wooden box, is embellished with various depictions of female beauty. A !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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postmodernist approach is exhibited in this particular segment, as Rauschenberg collaged images by the Old Masters canonical to the motif of the concubine throughout Art History. Examples of these reproductions consist of Picout’s Love and Psyche (1817), Pastoral Concert (1509) by Giorgione and Ingres’ Grand Odalisque75. To provide contemporary examples of beauty, Rauschenberg incorporated magazine cut-outs of pinup girls, extending the male gaze as the driving force of the sculpture. Adjacent to the idealized portrayals of women, Rauschenberg incorporated photographs of women influential to his biography: his mother. The juxtaposition of different versions of femininity—the harem, the pinup girl and the maternal figure—instigates question of what constitutes “beauty”. Combination of these both forms of feminine stereotypes is sardonic: what heterosexual man would want his fantasies to be interrupted by the sight of his mother alongside the curvaceous and sexually-driven women? Rauschenberg’s contributions to art were monumental to the development and reception of new aesthetics and identities. Rauschenberg’s vision furthermore defied archaic systems of art classification. To categorize Rauschenberg within Modernism would imply assimilation with larger known Abstract Expressionist painters, a group he tried to deliberately avoid. The postmodernist tendency of favoring multiplicity over homogeneity furthermore is resonated upon Rauschenberg’s talents. In addition to his profession as a sculptor, he also fulfilled the roles of a dancer, graphic designer, painter and performance artist. Assemblage is the perfect medium for committing the perfect crime, the one where Rauschenberg could not have gotten caught in self-revelation; not at least when !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
74
"Robert Rauschenberg Combines.” ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, COMBINES. N.p., Web. 5 May 2013.
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Ibid.
Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
the subject in question included desires actively persecuted under conventional social codes76. In addition to pioneering fullblown postmodernism, Rauschenberg laid foundation for the recognition of uncloseted gay artists. Without significance granted to Rauschenberg as the foremost postmodern gay artist, contemporary art would not have been graced by the personalities such as Andy Warhol, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Keith Haring. Eminence of outspoken gay artists became highly significant throughout the later decades of the twentieth centuryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s postmodern period, as both their poignant creations and identities became extremely self-aware and highly political.
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Katz, Jonathan D. "Committing the Perfect Crime: Sexuality, Assemblage, and the Postmodern Turn in American Art." Art Journal 67.No 1 (2008): 45. JSTOR. Web. 6 May 2013.
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Rauschenberg: Decoding the Queer through a Postmodern Perspective
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References "American Livestock Breeds Conservancy: Dominique Chicken." Dominique Chicken. American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, n.d. Web. 04 May 2013. Gitlin, Todd. "The Postmodern Predicament." Wilson Quarterly 3rd ser. 13 (1989): 67. JSTOR. Web. 4 Apr. 2013 Katz, Jonathan D. "Committing the Perfect Crime: Sexuality, Assemblage, and the Postmodern Turn in American Art." Art Journal 67.No 1 (2008): 45. JSTOR. Web. 6 May 2013. Kotz, Mary Lynn. Rauschenberg, Art and Life. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. Print. Mattison, Robert Saltonstall., and Robert Rauschenberg. Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Print. "Robert Rauschenberg Combines.” ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, COMBINES. N.p., Web. 5 May 2013. Sontag, Susan. “Notes on Camp” Against Interpretation and other essays. New York, NY: Picador U.S.A., 2001. Print. Wood, Paul. Varieties of Modernism. New Haven: Yale UP in Association with the Open University, 2004. Print.
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse Feibi McIntosh Junior, Art History (Communication Design and Digital Studies Minor)
The “Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse” explores the dynamic and complex role Womanhouse played in relationship and in juxtaposition with the dominant ideas of the Feminist Art Movement. Conceived by Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, and their undergraduate students at California Institute of the Arts, Womanhouse represents a chance for viewers to rethink traditional gendered expectations through the power of re-contextulized space and performance art. Womanhouse characterizes both as a feminist art installation and performance piece constructed in 1972 by Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, and their female undergraduate students. The pamphlet for Womanhouse classified the artwork as “a repository of the daydreams women have as they wash, bake, cook, sew, and iron their lives away” (Chesler 133). A defining piece of art in the Feminist Art Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Womanhouse acted as a “repository” for women’s gendered expectations in their roles as daughters, mothers, and housewives. Instead of recreating new identities or carving out new spaces for female artists as was promoted by the Feminist Art Movement, however; Womanhouse strived for viewers to rethink traditional female roles through the power of re-contextualized familiar spaces and performance art. The artists of Womanhouse transformed the private space of a home into a space that advocated for the recognition of women in their totality. The Feminist Art Movement, in which Womanhouse was originally conceived, focused on carving out and creating new spaces in the institutional public sphere, where female artists could receive recognition and obtain proper equality parallel to their male counterparts. Known as the ‘second wave’ Feminist movement in the late 1960s, women who were battling with the hindrances of
domestic life, inferior working conditions, and secondary status in the Civil Rights movement demanded equal opportunity in public spaces dominated by the patriarchy of men (Tickner). The Feminist Art Movement, a branch of the ‘second wave’ Feminist movement, advocated for similar concerns and organized protests against institutional discrimination— declaring equal opportunity and equal space for female artists in galleries, museums, and teaching schools (Nemser 18). Women Artists in Revolution (WAR), an activist group that grew out of the male-dominated organization Art Workers Coalition (AWC), radically advocated for “continuous, nonjuried exhibitions of women’s work, more one woman shows, a women artists’ advisory board, and 50% inclusion of women in all museum exhibitions” (19). WAR’s institutional critique differs from Womanhouse’s critique in that it was concerned with the civil rights of women in public spaces as opposed to private spaces. Womanhouse focused on the transformation of the traditional home and through this transformation, women had the opportunity to view the limitations of their gendered roles within a familiar context. By reconfiguring a space already present, instead of creating new spaces, Womanhouse sets itself a part from the activism of the Feminist Art Movement and
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
sheds light on more personally poignant inequalities. The Womanhouse project stemmed from Chicago and Schapiro’s female separation and consciousness-raising techniques— keys component in the theoretical foundational for the reconceptualization of the traditional domestic space. Separating their Feminist Art Program (FAP) of all female art students from the male community of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Chicago and Schapiro formed their own communal space, known as the “Feminist Studio” (Harper 763). As an explanation for this separation, Chicago remarks, “most women artists are caught somewhere between male identity and female identity, between adapting male values and struggling to find their own values” (25). Because the FAP was physically and psychologically separated from the CalArts campus, their consciousness-raising sessions differed from those of other feminist art groups. Feminist art groups as mentioned earlier strived for parallel equality to that of male artists — equal pay, equal exhibition space, and overall equal representation. As Chicago describes, females artists battled “to find their own values” in a patriarchal world, caught in a web between separating themselves from the male-dominated art world and fitting in with the male-dominated art world. Equality consists of male and female counterparts in a male and female community, and even though Chicago and Schapiro were concerned with issues of equality, they were more concerned in developing a “female aesthetic,” empowering their female students within the context of an all-female community (Nemler 20). Disregarding the male counterpart, the students of FAP generated consciousnessraising sessions focused on spaces crucial to womanhood and the female context, which inevitably led to the content of their
"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&! exhibition. Instead of creating a femalerepresented space in a male-dominated art world, the FAP students reverted to a traditional space —the domestic home— which gave a more impactful contribution to the re-thinking of gendered roles and gendered limitations. To produce the content of Womanhouse, the students of FAP sought inspiration in Chicago’s central core imagery and focused on personal experiences to re-conceptualize a traditional domestic space. Chicago sought to arrive at a “female aesthetic” derived from a “central core imagery” (Meskimmon 132). This intrinsically female imagery illustrates round, pulsating womb-line and female genitalia forms. Despite its body imagery connotations through the reduction of the female aesthetic to a biological formula, central core imagery also explores the spiritual aspects of femininity— most importantly, the inner spaces of womanhood. By centering on the biological aspects of womanhood, this ideology grounds the female thinker in herself and helps her explore the complexities within her body, and her body’s relationship to the space around her. The process of thinking about this imagery is a projection of inner space to its surrounding space, which is ultimately evident in the artistic content of Womanhouse. Womanhouse’s content is the students’ inner spaces, a projection of their female experiences and their closest associative memories from the home. The installation is not only a traditional domestic space, but also the projection of the students’ inner spaces and inner beliefs. The students grappled with a place of site and subject, a space that could debunk the gendered roles of domesticity and could strive to become a new area of thought that challenged the expectations of womanhood. The construction of Womanhouse took effect in 1970 and underwent eleven
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
weeks of collaborative work; students and teachers refurbished and remodeled a dilapidated, abandoned Hollywood mansion located more than forty miles from the CalArts campus. The students learned to operate power tools and replace broken windows, gruesome labor traditionally reserved for men (Harper 766). Each woman participated either in reworking their own room or working collaboratively with other students; in total the house had 17-rooms, each room addressing the deadening and stifling nature of housewifery. However one room stood separate from the rest and did not follow the criteria, but rather commemorated the positive contributions of women’s traditional nurturing activities— Dining Room. The room displayed an expansive dining table with a garrulously colored feast of papier-mâché food, a handsewn vinyl chandelier looming overhead, and a mural of sumptuous fruits and flowers based off eighteenth- century still life paintings (Chesler 133). On its own, there is little significance to Dining Room. The installation is not a reconstruction of its traditional space, nor did it exaggerate the room’s traditional functions. The only aspect of the Dining Room that echoed a “feminine aesthetic” is one fruit painted in the still-life mural; cut in half and facing outwards, the fruit displayed three central rings and appeared reminiscent of Chicago’s central core imagery. However, the imagery acted more as a call-out to the feminist cause, rather than containing a specific function. Overall, the room lacked argument and expression; in reality, it oozed high-end elitism, justified by the still-life mural, and illustrated an overriding plasticity, as constructed by the overabundance of fake food. Despite the vacuity of the reconstructed dining room space, the artist’s intention revealed itself in the juxtaposition with the adjacent room, Nurturant Room.
"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&! Nurturant Room (Fig 1.) was a room designed by three FAP students, Susan Frazier, Bicki Hodgetts, and Robin Weltsch. Essentially a parody of the kitchen space, Nurturant Room illustrated the burdens placed on women to provide food and be a source of nurture for her family. The sickly, fleshly pink colors— as shown on the cabinets, table, and walls— are feminine in social construction, but the sickly quality demonstrated the draining effect of women’s efforts exerted in the kitchen. In addition, the ceilings and walls dripped with rows and rows of poached eggs, which metamorphosed into sagging single breasts. The decorative motif captured the monotony and redundancy of a woman’s daily routine of constantly providing food, from the time of breastfeeding to cooking breakfast every morning. The kitchen’s pantry also displayed other forms of redundancy, “a repetitive assembly line of dishes prepared for the seemingly endless rounds of breakfast, lunch, and dinner that the housewife was expected to prepare throughout her lifetime” (Balducci 19). A row of bare light bulbs spotlighted the dishes and food in the pantry, which heightened the factory-like sterility of the space and the repetitious nature of providing food.
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&! achieved the same impact on its own. The traditional conceptualization of the kitchen space transformed to a space of parody, and required the viewers to rethink their relationship with a once traditional space. Like Nurturant Room, Menstruation Bathroom (Fig. 2) constructed by Chicago evoked a similar sensation of stark contrast. The antiseptic bathroom, painted in all white, addressed the traditionally taboo subject of menstruation. Situated in the middle of the room, a wastebasket of overflowing blood stained sanitary napkins captured the viewer’s attention. Originally witnessed through a doorway with white scrim stretched over the frame, the space is a space detached from the viewer. It is a space put on display, which highlighted not only the taboo nature of the subject matter, but also the turmoil inflicted on females by society’s pedestal of female purity. The virginal white of the interior countered the blood red of the sanitary napkins and denoted the difference between a woman’s expected exterior and the realities that incur. However, despite the detached aspect of the space, Menstruation Bathroom did not mean to suggest or continue the shameful indications of menstruation, but rather advocated for women’s bodies and their bodily functions to be confronted and taken at face value. The bathroom space is a reconfiguration of what space is meant to look like without having to hide the simple inevitabilities of womanhood; it is a space that advocated for the recognition of women in their entirety.
Figure 1. Vickie Hodgetts, Robin Weltsch, and Susan Frazier, Nurturant Kitchen, 1972. Mixed media site installation.
The comparison between Nurturant Room and Dining Room is blatant. Dining Room celebrated the abundance of food and the joys of a woman’s role in the household. Though barely a reconstruction of traditional space, the parallelism of the two rooms highlighted the veiled and forgotten labor that occurs in the kitchen for the dining room to achieve success. The contrast forced the viewers of the room to witness the demands of providing food and woman’s identity in providing food on a daily basis. The combination of the sickly pink and mutations of eggs to breast evoked an unsettling and comfortable feeling geared towards the selfless service performed by housewives. The reconstruction of the kitchen space sheds light on the selfless service of mothers, while the dining room space does not. But without the dining room space, the kitchen space would not have
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&! novel Cheri (Chesler 134). As the story goes, Lea’s beauty is faced with doom as her younger lover Cheri begins to find her less and less youthful. In the performance piece, the students acted the role of the aging courtesan, meticulously applying, removing in dissatisfaction, and once more reapplying heavy makeup in a slow and deliberate fashion. The performance demonstrated
Figure 2. Judy Chicago, Menstruation Bathroom. 1972. Mixed media site installation.
The three-dimensional spaces of Womanhouse, from Dining Room to Menstruation Bathroom, reconfigured the private domestic space of a home into an exploration of traditional female roles. The artists of Womanhouse even managed to heighten the viewing experience of the installation by incorporating fourdimensional spaces through the production of provocative, performance pieces. The students utilized techniques of pyschodramas, which “complemented the visual images of the transformed buildings” (Harper 768). With the combination of visual images and performance pieces, the three-dimensional spaces converted into an interactive space with elements of time and motion, intensifying the message of expected gender roles. Womanhouse’s performance pieces consisted of plays and four-dimensional installation pieces. Created by Karen LeCog and Nancy Youdelman, Lea’s Room (Fig 3.) captured a nineteenth-century, watermelon pink boudoir of an aging courtesan from the
Figure 3. Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman, Lea’s Room, 1972. Mixed media site installation.
Lea’s futile attempts to disguise her lost youth; in addition the repetitive nature of the performance reiterated the repetitiveness of Nurturant Room, once more echoing the demands of womanhood place upon by gendered expectations. The action of reapplying and removing makeup also contained a double meaning; the first is the expectation for females to remain constantly sexually available for their male counterparts; and the second, due to the act of make-up removal, is the dissatisfaction with the constant routine of masking the true female body. The performance piece of Lea’s Room constructed the struggle between satisfying their male counterparts and wishing to break free. Instead of layering the makeup with layer upon layer, the performance illustrated the act of )R!
The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
removal— challenges to change the expectations placed upon them and reidentify the body images of femininity. Other performance pieces in Womanhouse dabbled with similar themes on the monotony and dehumanizing nature of household work. Utilizing the ideas of maintenance art, Scrubbing performed by Chris Rush and Ironing performed by Sandra Orgel portrayed the trivialness of repetitious chores designated as woman’s work. In Scrubbing, Rush with a bowed head attentively scrubs the floor on her knees, while in Ironing, viewers witnessed Orgel silently and obsessively ironing a tablecloth. The script for the maintenance performances read as “a woman is scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. All fours. Back and forth, over and over, her arms circle and circle the floor in continuous motion…Later another woman irons a sheet, then another. Or is it the same sheet?” (Balducci 21). The stage directions and the performances of Orgel and Rush underscored the numbing essence of women’s domestic chores, and the repetitiveness brings to the foreground the creative confinements of the task. The silence of the performances stressed the devotional nature of women’s chores and the submissiveness required to complete the chores. By transforming a traditional household space and traditional household chores into an impactful performance piece, the FAP artists highlighted the inequality of men and women in the household through designated female chores. The reconfiguration of the space into a fourdimensional space of performance forced viewers to reconsider the gendered limitations behind trivial household tasks. In addition to the real time performances, Womanhouse acted as a performance venue with the production of numerous comical and serious skits, which contributed to the dramatic environment of
"#$%&''()*!"#$%!&! the space. The most controversial play was Chicago and Faith Wilding’s Cock and Cunt. The play emphasized the biological difference between men and women as Chicago and Wilding both dressed in enlarged genitalia costumes and an enacted a story of a bickering couple. Starting with dishwashing and ending in castration, the two parodied the gendered roles of husband and wife; each character would look to their genitals to justify the responsibilities set out by the ideal domestic sphere. However not all the performance pieces were comical in tone, Wilding’s Waiting addressed ideas similar to Nurturant Room and Lea’s Room, ideas of selfless service to the house and the family from birth to death. Rocking back and forth on a chair, her face emotionless and blank, Wilding recited a monologue on waiting through the stages of womanhood — childhood, adolescence, marriage, childbirth, and menopause —“waiting for the mirror to tell me I’m old, waiting for release” (Loeffler 463). Conjuring the themes of loss, Wilding’s performance art touches on the somberness of lost youth and lost time. The title of the piece, “Waiting,” suggests a waiting for each period of life to conclude, till the next one comes along, but the combination of the two converse themes of loss and waiting concludes to a feeling of hollowness. Performance pieces in Womanhouse were important elements of contribution that heightened the audience’s viewing experience. The involvement of time and motion, sound and enactment, gave a more intimate space and built a more recognizable relationship between the viewers and the art installation. The spaces within Womanhouse became a place where viewers could envision themselves in and engulf themselves in, and connect on a more personal level. Reconfiguration of traditional spaces is an important vehicle for change. It is a tool that utilizes the familiar to connect with
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The Reconfiguring of Traditional Spaces in Womanhouse
viewers on a more intimate level, but also has the ability to convey crucial messages through the altering of familiar contexts. Womanhouse, with its three-dimensional and four-dimensional spaces, embodied these ideas and more through its recontextualization of the traditional domestic home. By transforming the traditional spaces of the home, Womanhouse honed in on the gendered expectations of housewifery and analyzed how gendered representations produced itself through contrived definitions of womanhood and femininity. Instead of carving out new spaces for itself like the rest
of the Feminist Art Movement, the students and teachers of the Feminist Art Program altered an already familiar space and operated in the context of the familiar. Through confronting the gendered roles historically reserved for women, the artists of Womanhouse exceeded in an activism more personal than political. Home is the core of womanhood, from birth to death, and instead of waiting for time to pass, the artists of Womanhouse sought for viewers to rethink and re-identify what it means to be a woman mindlessly participating in a traditional domestic space.
References Balducci, Temma. “Revisiting ‘Womanhouse’: Welcome to the (Deconstructed) ‘Dollhouse.” Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Fall - Winter, 2006), pp. 17-23. Chesler, Phyllis, Esther D. Rothblum, and Ellen Cole. Feminist Foremothers in Women's Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health. New York: Haworth Press, 1995. 133-134. Chicago, Judy. "Special Issue: Miss Chicago and the California Girls," Everywoman (May 7, 1971): pp. 24-25. Harper, Paula. “The First Feminist Art Program: A View from the 1980s.” Signs, Vol. 10, No. 4, Communities of Women (Summer, 1985): pp. 762-781. Loeffler, Carl E. "Autobiography, Theater, Mysticism and Politics: Women’s Performance Art in Southern California." Performance Anthology: Source Book for a Decade of California Performance Art. San Francisco, CA: Contemporary Arts Press, 1980. Meskimmon, Marsha. Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics. London : Routledge, 2003. Nemser, Cindy. “The Women Artists’ Movement.” Art Education, Vol. 28, No. 7 (Nov., 1975): pp. 18-22. Tickner, Lisa. "Feminism and Art." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
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Performance Art and Performing with Art: The Difference between Adapting and Attempting
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Performance Art and Performing with Art The Difference between Adapting and Attempting Cassandra D'Cruz Junior, Art History (Two Dimensional Studies Minor) This paper looks into Jay Z's performance art piece of "Picasso Baby" at New York's Pace Gallery. The goal is to analyze Jay Z's new work as a performance artist and how this piece relates to other performance artists such as Marina Abramovic. The success of Jay Z's attempt to break down the restrictions of gallery spaces is determined by analyzing the work of these two artists.
Dyed mohawks, pristine suits, drooling admirers, and a man in a large clay cow head and twirling polka dotted cape filled New York’s Pace Gallery, keen to witness Jay Z’s transcendent performance art piece. In his performance, Jay Z questions the traditional hierarchy of art, by performing his rap “Picasso Baby”, from his Magna Carta… Holy Grail album, for six straight hours in a space typically reserved for so called ‘High Art’, while also debating the accessibility and relationship between art and the public. Jay Z also goes to great lengths to interact with his audience, giving each individual time with himself to dance, gawk, or do whatever they want during a course of his rap. By essentially performing one of his concerts at a smaller, more prestigious, and intimate venue, Jay Z transforms the perception of performance art and the hierarchy of art forms; adapting what Jay Z calls traditionally ‘bourgeois’ approaches to present his more commercialized art, hip hop music. However, because of his own personal prosperity and the more informal nature of the performance, Jay Z does not bring high art to the public, but rather elevates his own affluent stance. The format of Jay Z’s performance is not unique, but directly inspired from conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. Her performance The Artist is Present was set at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she sat at a table donning an elegant red evening gown and a bare face. One by
one, audience members would sit at the table across from Abramovic, remaining in silence, staring into each other’s eyes. In her piece, Abramovic generates a more psychological and conceptual version of art. In this work and others preceding it, Abramovic seeks to challenge social constructs in a method that is welcoming. Abramovic values intimacy over shock, an aspect expected in this specific performance. In her project “The Artist is Present”, Abramovic provides a new level of intimacy, through this serene manner of silent reflection, between artist and audience. In a piece constructed like Abramovic’s, we are forced to question not only our conception of art, but also our conception of our own interaction with the art world. In the art world, there is a rather clear hierarchy of form, led by painting and sculpture, followed by more commercialized and accessible art such as television and music. By artistic ideas taking these forms, we categorize their worth. Galleries and museums are two types of institutions that further influence this idea of high and low art. The aura and prestigious quality of museums and galleries force an air of haughtiness; you would never expect a room in a museum to be filled with Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop”. However, by artists attempting to create more profound messages in their work, some of these previously pigeonholed art forms are able to surpass their predetermined destiny. One of *'!
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Performance Art and Performing with Art: The Difference between Adapting and Attempting
! the alluring statements that Jay Z states in the beginning of his performance art film is that with galleries, there is a separation of the public and art. Only certain types of people are seen as ‘gallery-goers’, generally limited to high artists, the elite, and academics in the realm of art. This has created the myth of art as a luxury item, or at least those arts that belong in galleries. Jay Z himself was not born into this world of upper class luxuries. Jay Z spent most of his childhood in the Marcy Houses, a housing project in Brooklyn, New York. He did not graduate high school and was involved in drug dealing, as well as shot multiple times in his youth. However, with the start of his hip-hop career, Jay Z became extraordinarily prosperous. Although Jay Z’s music has evolved since his first album in 1996, he has always been viewed as an artistic and successful musician. He also does not steer clear of using his music to express personal concerns. Jay Z even headlined a concert titled “I Declare War” where he confronted personal tiffs between other rappers. He is also not only a rapper, but also a businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. It is thus no surprise that Jay Z has strayed beyond the path of a typical rapper and has gone to question beyond the scope of violence and parties. Married to the equally talented and financially successful Beyoncé in a staggering multimillion-dollar home, Jay Z has certainly evolved from the trouble youth that he was. The idea to adapt Abramovic’s piece began when Jay Z asked director Mark Romanek to create a music video for his song entitled “Picasso Baby”. Uninterested in doing a typical rap music video, Romanek instead took inspiration from another type of art form, performance art, to create a rap music video that did not include cars, dance clubs, or (too many) chains. In his song, there is interplay of elite and street objects.
Lines such as “I just want a Picasso, in my casa, no, my castle”, “I wanna a Rothko, no I wanna brothel”, and “Let’s make love on a million, in a dirty hotel” exemplify this exchange between objects typically defined as lesser or greater quality. Without even knowing names such as Rothko, Givenchy, and Basquiat, the way Jay Z presents them in his song highlights their reputable nature while also seamlessly weaving them in with imagery of more lower class objects such as brothels and motels. Parallel to his more commercial performance in a finer setting, Jay Z begins to blur the lines between high art and popular art, nicely setting up for his criticism against galleries initiated in his performance art piece. However, once again, here Jay Z is promoting his own accessibility to these higher quality objects, separating himself from the socio-economic class of his average listener. By bringing his commercialized hiphop music into a high art gallery, Jay Z both transcends the boundaries of art classification while also making the space more public oriented, intending to spoil this misconception of hierarchical art and that the art world is only there for those properly privileged and educated. It challenges preconceptions of what institutions can represent certain art forms as well as the definitions of high art and pop culture. Hiphop music and gallery space are certainly two aspects of art that have never interacted. And by even creating this relationship between the two, whether the project is successful or not, forces audiences to rethink the predetermined statures of art, institution, and the public. However, because of Jay Z’s own prosperous status, he is already a part of this finer world. Because of the performance as essentially a concert, Jay Z opens up the formalized gallery space into one where the public feels at ease and welcomed. As Jay Z stated in the beginning of this performance *(!
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Performance Art and Performing with Art: The Difference between Adapting and Attempting
! art film, “concerts are pretty much performance art, but the venues changed. And just by nature of the venues, the performance changes.” Through this statement alone, Jay Z is aligning himself with high artists, claiming that his work is just as important. Creating this change of venue, he does in fact change his own performance, making it more intimate, accessible, and personable. Jay Z’s “Picasso Baby” performance art piece transcends traditional categorizations of art, bringing what is generally considered pop street or commercialized into a space generally reserved for ‘high art’. More strictly related to Abramovic’s performance, Jay Z also attempts to create a higher level of intimacy between the audience and himself. Like Abramovic, Jay Z has each member of the audience come up one by one to himself, again creating an extraordinarily intimate feel. Jay Z makes these moments so incredibly personal to further break down the barriers of isolated gallery space and make the audience feel comfortable in the environment. Although there was undoubtedly a great range of people at his performance, there were also many highly recognizable figures. Famous artists, directors, and actors such as Judd Apatow, Jemima Kirke, and Adam Driver are featured in his piece. Obviously, these audience members will stand out to viewers particularly because of their familiarity, however, they also seemed to be featured in the performance art film significantly more then the lesser known members of the audience. Through the large participation of celebrities in the audience, Jay Z once again keeps up a small barrier between the public and the art world. While seeing these celebrities also in line, or simply in the documentary of the performance, we are once again reminded of those who are more accustomed to these events and this lifestyle.
Could you claim Jay Z’s piece was once again more commercial based because of the more energetic and playful manner of his performance, lacking Abramovic’s somberness? Of course. By having the audience rap and dance with him for sixhours Jay Z certainly uproots a different experience than silently mediating with each other. You could also claim that by not limiting the audience’s interactions with the artist (Abramovic’s audience were constrained to silently sitting in a chair across from her), this interaction was more real. However, what truly separates Jay Z’s performance from Abramovic’s is her desire to truly alter the relationship between artist and audience. Although Jay Z does this and accomplishes it fairly well, he does not quite rise to the level of Abramovic’s spirituality, focusing too much on performance rather than experience and the relationships formed through this performance. Abramovic went at great lengths to create a somber environment to ensure a connection with her audience that does not assimilate a celebrity signing autographs but rather psychological connection. Jay Z however, attempts a more joyous connection, making his performance more akin to a dance party. Although Jay Z’s piece is commendable, it does not quite meet the standard held by Abramovic. While Jay Z’s piece focuses on the joy and entertainment of art, Abramovic instead values a more psychological and conceptual version of art. For what both Jay Z and Abramovic intend to do, connect on a more intimate level with the audience, Abramovic’s artistic piece accomplishes this task more effectively. From the manifesto presented at the beginning of performance art film, Jay Z’s aims are mainly directed at connecting different forms of art and allowing a certain accessibility of galleries and high art conventions. Although Jay Z goes to extra lengths to promote this approach of intimacy *)!
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Performance Art and Performing with Art: The Difference between Adapting and Attempting
! and equality with his audience as well as the integration of varied art forms, an air of prestigiousness is still evident in the clean and untouchable quality of his white clothes, the equally white gallery, and of course the statue-like security guards who escort Jay Z around like the president. When I think of Jay Z, I do not think of the forlorn drug dealer he used to be, but the millionaire rapper he is today. Just like the sectored off billion dollar painting hung in a gallery, to me, Jay Z is just as intangible. Because of his current stance as an affluent artist and entrepreneur, we cannot define Jay Zâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project as surpassing obstacles set for commercial art and the public. Certainly, bringing a rap performance into a gallery made audiences and curators question the restrictions that dictate what forms of art are reputable enough to be put into gallery spaces. By essentially performing a concert at a more ostentatious venue, Jay Z transforms the perception of performance art and the hierarchy of art forms. However, this performance did not put all art forms on equal footing, but rather allowed Jay Z himself to adapt the opulent prominence of galleries. Although I do find this performance art piece to stand out in terms of questioning the hierarchy and institutionalism of art, the only image that remains in my mind after watching the performance art film is an untouchable, white suited Jay Z slinking away in his tinted, lustrous Maybach, leaving his audience on the street.
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